The Cure: hot! hot! hot!
The Cure concert on Sunday night was brilliant! 3 hours and 35 songs – the setlist is here. All played with a Lou Reed New York City album era ‘two guitars, bass and drums’ minimalist band with no keyboards. The band was Robert Smith (guitar), Simon Gallop (bass), Jason Cooper (drums) and Porl Thompson (guitar).
Photo by markmansour from Flickr
It was a loud and exciting show. I was so impressd by the band’s ability to interpret the music and produce great arrangements with such few instruments. Last time I saw them, in 2000, they had an extra member, so some songs had 3 guitar parts or, more often, someone playing keyboards.
Photo by markmansour from Flickr
Playing songs like The Walk, Lovesong and Fascination St without synths to replicate the arrangements of the recorded versions and to fill out the sound must have been a challenge. Fortunately the long extended arrangements of the previous tour were not replicated here – the songs were generally not overly long, and each was sharp, fast and energetic.
Even fast songs like The Walk featured a guitar version of the more familiar synth melody. They band all played extremely well, and Porl was particularly excellent on Wrong Number, which has an extremely cool lead guitar part played on the original recording by ex Bowie guitarist Reeves Gabrels.
The Cure demonstrated in this show that their power, relevance and freshness has elevated them to genuine rock icons, on par with performers like Bowie and The Rolling Stones, who are able to draw an audience of genuine music lovers, not just their core subculture acolytes. Their fans on Sunday were aged 10-60, which was remarkable, and the obvious goths were by far the minority.
The longevity of goth culture itself is not dependent on the ongoing appeal of The Cure, but the two are perhaps parallel phenonemon. Given the strength of the band at this show, I am extremely eager to hear the forthcoming new album.
You might also like
|
|
|
|
Other posts you may find relevant and interesting
- Placebo: I’m medicated, how are you?, 15 September 2006
- Bob Dylan: I used to care, but things have changed, 23 August 2007
- Adrian Belew at the Corner hotel, 5 December 2008
- London holiday – Brett Anderson live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 3 February 2010
- Johnette Napolitano at the Corner hotel, 14 October 2009